Tag: Cascades

This one took a couple times before I got it somewhat how I imagined it. The first picture below is the final version.

The initial inspiration came at Smith Rock State Park actually. The sun was setting and these huge clouds were looming over the Cascade crest to the west, almost obscuring the Three Sisters. It was possible to see the dark edges of exposed rock through the clouds though, looming, kind of sinister looking.

As the sun set, the last rays caught on some of the buildings in the foreground, glowing yellow orange.

The version below was the right idea, but too much foreground.

This version below was probably closest to what the scene actually looked like. I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with that flat line houses and trees/bushes.

This painting didn’t quite turn out, but I really liked this one part, so felt like I should try to crop it just to get it by itself. I liked how I caught a sense of light on the distant mountain. I also liked how I didn’t think about this part one bit, I just dabbed the paint brush on there, so the result is nice and loose. (The rest of the painting, not the same can be said for, unfortunately). This big rock outcropping, with the shadow side facing me, was in the foreground, and I knew that it would be hard to get, but wanted to try anyways. Not so successful. At least when it is cropped way down like this, it looks more like a rock outcropping in the foreground (rather than an unidentifiable mass).

I camped at Smith Rock State Park and this was one of the paintings I did while I was there, looking west towards the Cascades, with the edge of Smith Rock in the foreground. The trip was a lot of fun, the painting I did however was not so successful.

Here is the cropped version:

Here is the original below. I really go carried away with the “rim rock” lines in the distance — I made them too straight. And the rock that is shadowed, it is just too big of a shapeless mass. Maybe some day I’ll understand how to integrate something like that into a painting but for now it is just beyond me, to be honest. I think that it should have been darker in value than the background (rather than lighter) and probably if it didn’t take up so much space, that would help.

I found painting these big rocks to be pretty challenging in general. Really hard to simplify!

I did a quick pair of paintings on my recent bicycle trip up Mckenzie Pass. And while I wasn’t particularly excited about the results, I found the idea that I was trying to explore interesting.

If you look up at these peaks long enough, you see that the snow isn’t only white, but stained with browns and reds from the surrounding rock.

Both of these paintings were based off of that basic insight that snow is not white, but tinged in placed with shades of browns and grays and reds.

That red color is particularly exciting to me. It is the color of blood, the color of the earth’s blood, so to speak.

I couldn’t get close enough to see if those colorful stains on the snow were caused by materials that resemble those cinder rocks used in landscaping, as in the picture to below.

Although it wouldn’t’ be too surprising if they looked just like that.

I continue to be fascinated by that utterly raw and elemental feeling that pervades Mckenzie Pass. The volcanic-rock-strewn vistas on the pass are the closest one can get to seeing geology in action, apart from being near an actual erupting volcano, of course (or maybe being in an earthquake if we get really precise.) This is how rocks form, this is how the planet earth formed, it is how human beings formed, that is, if we are conceived of as beings made from the same elements as the rest of the planet.

Off the coast, the Juan de Fuca Plate collides with the North American Plate, and is forced down, into the earth, around 50 to 100 miles underground. Heat forces fluids out of the Juan de Fuca Plate, and these fluids rise up, percolating through the crust above, creating mountains like the Cascades, and the Three Sisters.

From 35 million years ago until around 7 million, the western Cascades formed, back when the Willamette Valley was still under water, part of the Pacific Ocean. These so called Western Cascades consist of the more heavily eroded hills that stand in front of the snow capped peaks.

Then as the Juan de Fuca Plate move farther east, the source of the volcanoes shifted to the east as well, and the newer peaks of the High Cascades were gradually formed. You can see it pedaling east on 242, heading gradually up through the trees, a long u-shaped valley, so long and wide (with the trees so big) it is hard to see that it was formed by a glacier. Then the road abruptly hits a series of sharp switchbacks, this is the beginning of the more recent lava flows that characterize the High Cascades. These switchbacks traverse lava flows that were produced by Sims Butte and Collier Cone. But it is Belknap Crater, Little Belknap and Yapoah Crater that produced the really spectacular lava flows at the top of Mckenzie Pass. Lava flowed from Yapoah Crater around 2000 years ago, and the hardened lava seems frozen in time, like a river that suddenly became still.

A painting, of course, cannot capture the drama of this place, its magnitude. It is absurd, it is surreal.

But I think the dramatic colors of those two paintings above are a way to at least approach it, to put a frame around what cannot be framed.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to bicycle over Mckenzie Pass, while it was only open for bicycles. I also took the opportunity to watercolor.

It was a beautiful day on the summit, 5,325 feet, warm, cool breeze blowing. At one point the weather almost seemed to turn, the temperature dropped noticeably and the breeze picked up a little. The clouds started growing, slamming into the Three Sisters, getting caught on their summits.

I feel like I was able to capture some of this raw, exposed feel of the summit of the pass, in the watercolor below. I am pleased with the spontaneity, the fluidity of the painting. It was the third painting I did that afternoon, so perhaps it helped that I was already warmed up. Sometimes it is easy to sit down, do a painting, realize it is not very good, and loose inspiration. Perhaps it is only after the second or third that we are really ready to go.

This vantage point isn’t actually quite at Mckenzie Pass summit, but I followed the Pacific Crest Trail for 100 feet or so to a nice spot, just out of sight of the road.

I feel like I was able to capture some of the energy of the place, with the lines of the mountains contrasting with the lines of the foreground and the lines of the clouds in the sky. The lines are at odds with each other, so it seems to give some tension.

I tried to repeat the shape of the mountain/s in the clouds above, and it seems that this is one of the more successful aspects of the painting. That clouds in the upper right really becomes the focus of the painting, setting up a nice “triangle” of interest, from the cloud to the mountain to the foreground.

Below is a ink study I did of the mountain, as well as a photo taken from that spot, (though the photo capture not that partly cloudy day when I painted, but the next afternoon, which had an absolutely clear sky)

Some drawbacks with the painting:

The brushwork in the foreground wasn’t as light and spontaneous as I would I have liked, I should have switched to the rigger brush right away.

There is a little “puddle” of slightly darker value in the sky next to the highest cloud. That helps add to the value contrast but also I think it could have been more even with the rest of the sky.

I had trouble with the middle ground, in front of the mountain but behind the trees. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that space.

In the foreground, the hardest part was all those lava rocks. I darkened that space up when I got home and added some more texture but I still wasn’t quite happy with it. Needless to say, simplifying lava flows is pretty challenging.

The composition is good, for the most part, I like the low horizon and the dominance of the sky. I think that there might be a little extra strip of blue at the very top that is unnecessary. At the same time though, part of the effectiveness of this painting seems to be the way the eye goes to the cloud first, and then comes down to the tops of the mountain, a disorienting moment.

Just for the record, here is one of the throw-aways from that day. I was feeling inspired with a nice cadmium yellow-burnt sienna wash to underlie the whole thing, but somehow I ended up with values way too light and my composition is pretty uninspired too.

After sketching on the Pacific Crest Trail, I crossed over the summit and headed downhill to Sisters. Right outside of town is one of my favorite sketching spots, looking up at the three sisters, the sky always huge and blue during the summer. It is just absolutely beautiful.

I did two sessions there, once in the evening, and once in the morning. For the evening session, the first one I came up with was extremely disappointing. I mean it is not necessarily bad. But my composition wasn’t focused enough and things sort of “spread out” to be equal on the page and nothing has any dominance. I made a nice value sketch to prepare for this one but somehow it didn’t quite stick and my composition was kinda out of control once I got it on the page.

I still had some energy so I started another painting immediately.

This one I was much more pleased with. The mountains loom over the houses below — I probably exaggerated their size at least a little bit from real life, but it achieves the feeling I was looking for. The space between the houses and the mountains is pretty narrow, but there are some lines sandwiched in there helping to give the sense of distance. I even got a little backwash going in the sky.

Here’s the reference photo.

The clouds were changing pretty quickly so I decided just to keep it simple.

My biggest accomplishment with this painting was that I stopped before I thought I was finished. That is my problem sometimes: an urge to finish the painting, or at least to keep going, while I am on site. But I had been painting for a while (an old couple in a Subaru even stopped and asked if I was okay, I guess they had left home, done an errand, and then went back home and I was in the same spot). So somehow I found the presence of mind to stop and pack up and finish it later (in this case with my headlamp in my tent).

I was glad I did. That bank of trees right behind the houses was off to a rather bad start, but somehow I was able to save it, only after taking a look at it later though.

The next morning I did it again, from a slightly different vantage point. I smooshed the Three Sisters together a little bit to make room for Broken Top over on the left.

No clouds on this day! And this was my biggest acccomplishment, the shimmering sky in this painting. I put down a very faint wash, uniform, from the top of the paper to the tops of the mountains. I let it dry completely, then wet that area again, let it dry slighly, and then put on the second layer starting at the top. I had to move the paint around quite a bit with the brush, rather than the water itself — but too much water in this situation ruins that (more or less) even gradient.

The sky really shimmers in this one, a way that a photo doesn’t quite capture to be honest. I’m not quite sure what made that effect possible. It is either the layer of fine wash under a thicker but still transparent layer; or the way I applied paint to a partially wet surface; or the way that the value difference between sky and mountain is very slight, and the value of the exposed “rock” areas is much darker in comparison.

Here’s a reference photo of this scene:

The biggest problem I had is that I tried to “finish up.” And I blotted on a real thick value for those green trees in the center of the painting. I should have left it more unfinished! With less value, that would have been fine. Or even no trees at all. I was able to rescue it a little bit, when I worked on it later.

The thing is, I wasn’t really pleased with this painting at all until I looked at it later. That is the thing about watercolor, you need to withhold judgement while the thing is coming together and don’t get too hung up outcomes. Sometimes I find myself just burning with an emotion when I am working on these things (sometimes positive usually negative) but I need to work more on just letting things unfold.

There was a composition flaw in this one that I didn’t notice until later, when I garbled up the bottom with too much grass and felt like I just needed to cut it off.

It is not a big difference, but I feel like There is a little too much open space on the very bottom of the page and cutting a bit off gives more emphasis to the sky. Should have thought about dominance more when I was composing the scene. I probably could have compressed the land even more to give more dominance to the sky.

And to finish it off, below is a painting I did in 2015 based on this same scene (lying as it does, right next to a great bicycling route).

I feel encouraged by my progress, when I compare my latest work to this. I didn’t feel confident enough with watercolor at that point to even take them along with me, I only brought pen and a watercolor pad, to fill in with colors later. And my sense of composition, color, and value were clearly just beginning. So it is exciting to look back!